


shadows bleeding through the light

by wethethousands (atlantisairlock)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hopeful Ending, Not Canon Compliant, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 07:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2685074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/wethethousands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>hunting is done in silence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shadows bleeding through the light

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'almost here' by brian mcfadden.

When I hunt, all I hear is silence. Not even my thudding heartbeat, pounding in anticipation of a kill. Just the slow, silent pulse of the forest - of every living being surrounding me, of waterfalls and rivulets and the wash of blue over silver-gray rocks, of the sunbeams glittering off the tip of my arrow just before I line up and shoot. A special type of silence only a hunter would know; a silence worshiped by those who know the forests better than themselves.

The elk is in plain sight, and all I have to do is  _let go -_ _  
_

The crunch of a dead leaf under a heavy, misplaced sole is thunderous. Even an animal who has lived all its life in safety knows danger when it hears it. Before the arrow has completed its flight, the beast has melted into the shadows, and not only have I lost my first kill, we've alerted any other wildlife around. 

I don't even have to whirl around and stare at Messalla to know that he's got a mortified expression on his face. "Sorry," he murmurs, shuffling his foot back through a carpet of leaves, which only makes things worse. 

Gale would have known not to do that. Gale would have treaded as silently as the elk itself, and they refused to let him come. I can't hunt beside people who are not born to hunt. I can't. Not like this. Not while the cameras are watching. 

Maybe it's the flushed anger in my face, or the way I twitch when I lower my bow, but Cressida gestures for Castor and Pollux to stop filming, and they lower their cameras. "Go back," she orders firmly, no arguments, and they nod, turning away. Every footstep that lands in the blanket of leaf litter is deafening, and I'm still frozen when the sounds fade away. 

"Katniss?"

It takes me a while to notice Cressida's hand on my shoulder before I turn to stare at her, numb. Her eyes are as blue as the sky I remember back in Twelve, back before all this, back before I was a girl, not a pawn - searching, hesitant. "Do you want to talk?"

 _No, you're not Gale or Prim, aren't you following Coin's orders?, I just want to go home,_ but the trees seem to be closing in and the wind is picking up and it travels when I croak out my answer of  _yes._

 

 

She lets me lead her to the brook, and to her credit, wades through the currents to the sun-warmed stone in the middle of the stream so she can prop herself on the sturdy surface by my side.

And we talk. She asks about Twelve; I ask about the Capitol. She shows me how the camera works on the inside, and I let her run her hands over my bow. We cloud watch, and when she points out shapes that I don't even notice, I manage to smile. 

"Do you love him?" She asks, just once when the comforting quiet cloaks us, shields us from the horrors happening beyond this peaceful, beautiful ravine, and she doesn't even need to mention who it is - either way, the answer is the same.

"I don't know." It's honest, and for a moment I fear her brow will furrow in all-too-familiar confusion but she nods like she understands, and I think that maybe, maybe she does. I take it as a chance to ask a question of my own. 

"Why'd you tell them all to go back and stop filming? Coin's not going to be happy."

The wind changes before she speaks again. "I'm not just your film director, you know... I'm your friend. Or at least, if you want me to be." 

 

 

But the thing I don't understand, not really - is that I do.

When the wind dies down a little, the clouds part a bit more. Her hand settles on mine, and I think I hear the steady tempo of her pulse, a cadence of blood-rush against my skin.

 

 

This is not love. 

I don't know what love is. I don't know if I love him, or them.

This is not a love story, and there will be no happy ending, no sunset, no castle for the princess. This is a war.

This is not love.

 

 

And yet her touch falls just so, warm like the surface we sit on, warmer than the sun itself. 


End file.
